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FAIRMONT STATE COLLEGE
OCCASIONAL PAPERS
Number Five
A LEGACY: CAUSE AND EFFECT
by
Jo Ann Lough
Associate Professor of Speech Communication
and Theatre
Fairmont State College
1994
THE SERIES
Fairmont State College Occasional Papers, edited by Dr. Wayne R. Kime of the
Department of English, publishes the texts of lectures and other writings of professional interest by faculty and staff members of Fairmont State College. It is
distributed free of charge to friends of the college.
THE TEXT
The text printed here is based on a lecture delivered on April 26, 1993 as an
installment in the Presidential Lecture Series initiated in 1989 by Dr. Robert J.
Dillman, the current president of the college.
CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
378.745
L928 l
Lough, Jo Ann.
A legacy : cause and effect / by Jo Ann Lough. -Fairmont, West Virginia : Fairmont State College, 1994
15 p. ; 23 cm. -- (Fairmont State College occasional papers ; no. 5)
1. Fairmont State College--History
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was
somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it
was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise.
Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life
The world of actuality, insofar as that world is the work of the
human mind and hand, is imagination’s legacy. Out of this
legacy each individual and each generation can by imagination
create possibilities which, if actualized, change the world and
enlarge the legacy for future generations.
Harry S. Broudy, Enlightened Cherishing:
An Essay on Aesthetic Education
There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he looked upon and received
with wonder, pity, love, or dread,
that object he became
And that object became part of him for the day, or
a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
Walt Whitman, “There Was a Child Went Forth”
JO ANN LOUGH
Jo Ann Lough is well known throughout West Virginia for her
contributions to speech and theatre education. She took her undergraduate degree at Fairmont State College and an M.A. at West Virginia University, and she undertook further graduate study at the University of
Pittsburgh. In 1955 she joined the faculty of Fairmont State College, and
upon the retirement of L. A. Wallman she served as Chair of the Speech
and Drama Department from 1967 to 1974. Under her guidance, the
Town and Gown Players and the Masquers organizations flourished.
She has directed for public performance fifty-four major plays, designed
and produced costumes for approximately eighty, and assisted with makeup, posters, programs, properties, sound, set decoration, and publicity
for innumerable others.
Jo Ann Lough owes her abiding enthusiasm for Arts education
to her mother, a 1927 graduate in Elementary Education from Fairmont
State Normal School, and to her father, for whom research, writing, and
publication were a way of life.
A Legacy: Cause and Effect
by
Jo Ann Lough
In 1992-1993 we celebrate Fairmont State College’s one hundred twenty-five years of existence. In so doing, whether consciously or not, we celebrate the literally millions of lives and events
that have been causes, or else effects, of our own collective existence.
We celebrate ourselves. We are our own legacy.
To explore our legacy as an institution is to know it, to better
use it, and to enhance its impact on future generations. To follow
every path of such an exploration would take many lifetimes. In
tonight’s lecture I can hope to provide only a brief glimpse into the
past; yet through that glimpse we may come to know better a few of
the many persons who have made a difference.
We are gathered in Wallman Hall, a building named in honor
of Lawrence A. Wallman. In the academic year 1921-1922 Wallman
was attending Fairmont State Normal School, as the college was
then known, in pursuit of an acting and writing career. He was
editor-in-chief of a student publication, the Fairmont Normal School
Bulletin, and it was thus no coincidence that articles and editorial
statements about dramatic matters appeared often in the campus
paper that year. For example, an editorial in the issue for November
18, 1921 noted that at the beginning of the term “there was talk of
starting a dramatic club”:
In one of the classes [English], a committee was appointed to draw
up a few plans and present them to the class for approval. … The
plans were accepted by the class. … The plans have been before the
faculty for nearly a month now and so far we have had nothing. …
If you are in favor of it, get behind it and push and maybe our
esteemed faculty will take some action.
Pushed along by encouragement like this, events moved forward
rapidly. A headline in the Bulletin for December 16 announced
“STUDENTS PLAN DRAMA CLUB.” One month later, on January
13, 1922, the same paper reported that the club had come into
existence and elected its officers, the General Manager-President
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A Legacy: Cause and Effect
being a young man named George Turley. A second article assured
readers that the drama club was “out for business” and would
“deprive itself of all social meetings, to accomplish its end, the
perfecting of good plays.”
By the close of the academic year 1921-1922 the drama club at
Fairmont Normal was a going concern, and its members were
beginning to press for instruction in the field of their interest. An
editorial by Lawrence A. Wallman in the Bulletin for June 6 reported
that “We tried to persuade the administration of the school to
provide us with a teacher, an instructor if you please, in the field of
dramatics and related courses but as we lacked persuasive powers,
no hopeful promises were elicited.” Nevertheless, elsewhere in this
issue a student journalist insisted on the need for an elocution
teacher. Noting accurately that Fairmont Normal had earlier employed instructors in public speaking, the writer pointed out the
particular need for such a person at just this time, when “so many
plays and entertainments are being presented for the public.” And
this latter claim was founded on fact. Under the headline “FIFTYFIFTY BIG SUCCESS,” the June 6 issue of the Bulletin described a
lively evening’s entertainment by the student players. According to
the reporter,
…a few minutes after the rise of the curtain the audience began to
laugh, and they continued to laugh until the final curtain. The
vaudeville acts were also very clever and well done … . Turley and
Wallman also showed the public that their music and clever jokes
were as acceptable on the stage as they are around the 'Bee Hive.'
It was an all-out campaign. The student group meant it. They
were “out for business”!
The following year at Fairmont State Normal School was yet
more eventful. The Normal was first authorized in 1923 to offer four
years of college work and to award the baccalaureate degree. (As a
passing note, Dr. William P. Turner explains in his A Centennial
History of Fairmont State College (60) that, despite its new identity as
a college, owing to legislative inaction the school retained its title
Fairmont State Normal School until 1931, when it was finally renamed Fairmont State Teachers College.) In addition, theater enthusiasts among the students were delighted at the school’s response to their recent initiatives, spearheaded by Lawrence A.
Wallman. In its issue for October 17, 1923, the Bulletin announced
Jo Ann Lough
3
that Walter R. Barnes, the new Dean of Instruction and head of the
English department, had authorized course offerings in Speech that
would encompass dramatics, oratory, and debate. And beyond this,
a graduate of Columbia University, Paul F. Opp, had been employed as Director of Theatre. The students had won their instructor, “if you please.”
Years afterward, in an unpublished historical sketch of speech and
drama instruction at Fairmont,
Lawrence A. Wallman characterized the
curricular innovations of 1923 as “advanced thinking” for the time. “Few if
any of even Ivy League Colleges offered
drama courses or had Departments of
Speech,” he recalled. “Students were
supposed to get experience of this nature in extra-curricular debate and
drama clubs.”
Paul F. Opp
That first year the drama club at
Fairmont Normal changed its name, to the Masquers, and elected as
its first president that effective journalist, Lawrence A. Wallman
(Bulletin 17 October 1923). During that year the Masquers produced
two programs of one-act plays and also their first full-length undertaking, Booth Tarkington’s Tweedles (Bulletin 28 November 1923, 21
May 1924). Meanwhile, with Paul F. Opp came instruction not only
in theatre but in speech education. The two student literary societies, the Lyceum and the Mozart, were still in existence at this period,
but Opp reinstituted formal instruction in speech.
During the spring prior to Opp’s arrival, college students
throughout West Virginia had met at Salem College to help lay the
foundation for intrastate competition in speech and drama. Under
the direction of Dr. I. F. Boughter (pronounced “bookter”), a Salem
College History teacher, this group was organized as The West
Virginia Intercollegiate Speech Association. Its purpose was “to
promote forensic and dramatic activities within and between the
colleges and universities in the state” (Booth 89). It did just that.
Not surprisingly, Paul F. Opp and Fairmont Normal students
immediately became involved in the work of the Speech Association. In 1927 Boughter was head of the History department at
Fairmont, where he continued as secretary-treasurer of the Speech
Association.
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A Legacy: Cause and Effect
On March 15, 1934, the eleventh annual state speech tournament began on the Fairmont campus. But it ended tragically the
next day upon the sudden death of the organization’s founder. At
9:10 a.m. on March 16, as Boughter
stepped from the Administration—now
Hardway—Building into the driveway
that curves around its southeast end, he
was struck down by a truck. He was
rushed to Cook Hospital, at Second
Street and Gaston Avenue, but he died
there about an hour later. That afternoon the stunned Speech Association
voted to cancel its activities for the remainder of the year and to forward a
resolution in memoriam to all school
newspapers within the state. At FairDr. I. F. Boughter
mont the Columns, as the Bulletin was
now known, ran a memorial tribute to I. F. Boughter, a man whose
life was “eloquent with its accomplishments”:
Students who have known him will seek his leadership, and then
remember that he has gone where they cannot follow, and has left
only his memory as an Inspiration to light the way … . [M]ay the
spirit that was in him, abide in us that we carry on the light. Amen.
(quoted in Booth 37)
Cause and effect? Whether we remember this early educator
or not, his memory—the legacy of his deeds—does still light the
way. The West Virginia Intercollegiate Speech Association remains
in existence; its president this year is Dr. Robert Mild of the Fairmont State College Speech and Theatre department. A second
organization, the West Virginia Theatre Conference, has grown out
of the original group. And at present practically every college and
university in the state offers degrees in Speech Communication,
Theatre, and allied studies.
In 1924-1925, the second year of their existence, the Masquers
became interested in securing a charter in a national dramatic honor
society. They applied to two organizations, the National Collegiate
Players and Alpha Theta Phi, but they were turned down by both.
Fairmont was a teacher training school, while these societies recognized chapters at liberal arts colleges and universities only. And so,
Jo Ann Lough
5
as Paul Opp later put it, if an honor society were to exist that would
recognize Fairmont students for their participation in theatre work,
“we had to form our own.” At the meeting of the state Speech
Association he and E. Turner Stump of Marshall College (now
Charter of Fairmont State Normal School’s founding chapter of Alpha Psi Omega
University) joined with other interested persons to form a new
organization, to be named Alpha Psi Omega. Stump was persuaded
to serve as president, Russell Spiers of Colgate University was vicepresident, and Opp was secretary. Among the first colleges following Fairmont to be granted charters in Alpha Psi Omega were
Marshall College, Washington and Lee University, Acadia University, and Lynchburg College. Shortly afterward, these chapters
were joined by institutions yet further afield, including ones at Kent
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A Legacy: Cause and Effect
State University, the University of Maryland, Colgate University,
and the University of Texas. Recalling the tri-state meetings of
Alpha Psi Omega in those early days, Opp summarized the diverse
advantages they yielded those who attended: “We learned about
productions; we learned what other colleges were doing in this area.
We grew very close socially … . I don’t know whether other parts of
the country had any intercollegiate exchange then or not. [But] We
promoted that kind of thing” (Garner 5-6).
In 1926 Alpha Psi Omega began publication of a magazine,
Playbill, with Paul Opp as its editor. Playbill continued to be published out of Opp’s office on the bottom floor of the college’s
Administration Building until 1964, when he retired. At that time he
was provided an office in what is now Jaynes Hall, where he
continued his work. Playbill is in fact still being issued, and its
successive volumes may be found in the Library of Congress, the
New York Public Library, and college and university libraries across
the nation (Garner 10-11). The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Theatre Research Institute, at Ohio State University, houses not only
a complete file of Playbill but also the archives of Alpha Psi Omega.
The archives of Delta Psi Omega, a dramatics honorary for junior
colleges formed in 1929 along the lines of its near namesake, reside
at the Institute as well. Currently almost one thousand chapters of
Alpha Psi Omega and Delta Psi Omega exist, representing all fifty
states of this nation and several foreign countries.
Among thousands upon thousands of students, year after
year, the spark that was Opp … that was Wallman … that was
Turley … that was all those others … has ignited a fire … that thing
called theatre.
Paul Opp ascribed the rapid growth of Alpha Psi Omega
during the 1920s to the then current national community theatre
movement (Garner 8). Fairmont was at that time decidedly an
active community theatre town. Among other such groups it boasted
the Fairmont Community Players, organized in 1928, for whom
Opp directed, acted, and served on the board of directors. But
amateur dramatics was not new to Fairmont, which had always been
a community theatre town. In 1868 the Town Hall Company,
formerly known as the Dramatic Society, performed plays on the
top floor of the town hall, at the corner of Monroe and Adams
Streets. In 1848 a group called the Fairmont Players used the
basement of a local Methodist church. In 1795 residents of the
Fairmont vicinity could see Shakespeare productions by actors who
Jo Ann Lough
7
toured the settlements by barge along the Monongahela River. As
early as 1777 local residents were presenting plays at Prickett’s Fort
(Lough).
Paul Opp was no doubt right in associating the early success of
Alpha Psi Omega with the widespread community theatre movement. But we should also note that the enthusiasm for community
theatre was probably itself inspired by a tradition of professional
touring theatre that had reached its height by 1900. In the late
nineteenth century the best—and no doubt some of the worst—
plays this nation and England had to offer were to be seen in
practically every American city, town, and hamlet. Almost every
town had its Grand Opera House, though opera was rarely performed (Lewis passim). Instead, touring shows performed regularly
in towns like Weston, Shinnston, Monongah, Grafton, Martinsburg
… and Fairmont. Fairmont had its own Grand Opera House,
located at the corner of Monroe and Jackson Streets. The old Grand
seated 1,200, and local audiences saw there Maude Adams in Chanticleer, Lillian Russell, Moran and Mack, Williams and Walker, Tom
Thumb, and so many more. (The Marion County Little Theatre, a
community theatre organized after World War II, had its home on
the third floor of the Grand.) Nor was the Grand the only location in
Fairmont where popular theatre was to be enjoyed. From the 1880s
to the early 1900s The Rink, located on Madison Street, housed play
productions and other entertainments. Will Rogers appeared there,
as did Fairmont’s Broadway star Phil Greener, who performed in
his Broadway hit Peck’s Bad Boy (Lough).
The impact of community theatre and the touring plays on the
nation and on Fairmont was profound. At the Normal, theatre
education took root in the late 1920s, when the touring shows were
beginning to die out and the theatres were showing movies. By
1928-1929 the Masquers were staging eight major shows annually,
including two in the summer. The eight offerings in that season
were The Patsy, The Importance of Being Earnest, Ten Nights in a Bar
Room, The Thirteenth Chair, Juno and the Paycock, Hedda Gabler, Fast
Workers, and What Ann Brought Home (Wallman). The shows played
two nights each to full houses in the Normal’s auditorium, which
was located at that time in the east wing of the Administration
Building. The auditorium was complete with a brass railed balcony
and a pump organ—the latter of which is still on campus and,
rebuilt, still works. Ten Nights in a Bar Room, a stage adaptation of
T. S. Arthur’s famous temperance novel, was later presented to a
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A Legacy: Cause and Effect
sellout-house at the Fairmont Theatre (Bulletin 7 February 1929), as
were other productions. By this time the Masquers had saved
enough money from box office receipts to buy for their home stage
a set of maroon velour curtains (Bulletin 15 March 1928). These
curtains continued in use for over thirty years, until 1960-1961. We
have preserved a part of them on which
someone—who was it?—painted a medallion identifying the donors—the
Masquers—and the year of their gift.
Then one day during the 19281929 school year Harry T. Leeper, a
former student of Paul Opp who was
teaching drama at East Fairmont High
School, stopped by the Normal for a
visit with Opp and his secretary Ernest
Bavely, from Monongah, another former
student. This day, as Leeper later wrote,
something new came up. Opp had reHarry T. Leeper
ceived from Earl Blank, a friend of his in
Casper, Wyoming, a letter asking “Why can’t we have something
like Alpha Psi Omega for high schools?”:
The idea had already occurred to Paul Opp. So the three of us
[Opp, Bavely, and Leeper] decided to make the idea reality. We had
a number of after school meetings in Opp’s classroom. We added
Sunday afternoon meetings. [Sometimes] … on pleasant days …
I would pick up the other two and we would drive for awhile; ideas
seemed to flow better as we drove. The drive sometimes ended on
my front porch where we wrote a constitution and an initiation
[ceremony]. (“Thespians” 12)
Describing the same series of events, Paul Opp recalled that in 1927
Earl Blank had obtained a chapter of Alpha Psi Omega for the Iowa
Wesleyan College drama club. That club’s name, the Thespians—
after Thespis, believed by the Greeks to have been the first actor—
had struck Opp at the time as an excellent one for a drama organization. And so in 1928 “National Thespians” seemed to him appropriate for a new honorary society at the secondary school level.
Earl Blank became the first director of the National Thespians,
and Natrona County High School in Casper, Wyoming was awarded
Troupe 1. Troupe 2 of the national organization was at West
Jo Ann Lough
9
Fairmont High School; Troupe 3, at East Fairmont. Fairmont, West
Virginia was the society’s first national headquarters, Paul Opp
serving as its executive secretary and Harry Leeper designing its
official insignia. The stated purposes of
the Thespians were “to help in improving the quality of productions, to aid in
play selection and problems of stagecraft, and to provide a magazine that
would keep directors abreast of what
other schools were doing and offer them
publicity for their outstanding work.”
Alpha Psi Omega sponsored the new
organization with a loan of $500 to pay
for postage and help defray the cost of
printing the constitution, the book of
ceremonies, special forms, and a magaEarl Blank in 1978
zine. That magazine, The High School
Thespian, was edited by Harry Leeper.
The Thespians organization grew so rapidly that by the end of
the 1928-1929 school year it already numbered seventy-one troupes.
When in 1929 Paul F. Opp took leave of
absence from Fairmont Normal to pursue his doctorate at the University of
Toronto, he continued to serve as executive secretary. But when Ernest Bavely
began a teaching appointment in
Weirton, West Virginia, Opp turned the
office over to him. After only two years
at Weirton, Bavely gave up teaching in
order to work full-time administering
the Thespians organization. He moved
to Cincinnati, a city with good publishing facilities for The High School ThesErnest Bavely
pian, and the organization’s headquarters was also relocated there. Shortly after this, Bavely organized
the National High School Drama Conference, an organization which
has had a great impact on arts education in the United States. By
1935 almost 1,000 Thespians chapters were in existence and a headquarters building had been acquired (“Thespians” 11-13).
In preparing for this lecture, I telephoned the International
Thespian Society, as it is now known, to learn of its status sixty-four
10
A Legacy: Cause and Effect
years after its founding. It’s doing fine. The official magazine, now
called Dramatics, has been published continuously since its inception, “outdistancing any competition by decades” (“Thespians” 8).
This year the Thespians has created a junior high school affiliation
and has already recognized 55 middle school troupes. The society
numbers 29 active high school troupes in West Virginia and 2,516 in
the United States and foreign countries; its student membership is
33,000 (McCuhan). Each year approximately 2,400 students, teachers, theatre professionals, and others attend the national festival—
inaugurated by Ernest Bavely—at Ball State University, in Muncie,
Indiana, for a week of plays, workshops, college scholarship auditions and interviews, and general camaraderie (Palmarini 18 et
passim). Counting its lifetime members and current members, the
aggregate membership of the International Thespians is one and
one-half million (McCuhan).
Some of those one and one-half million? … Sometimes to drop
a name makes a number a reality. International Thespian members
include such stage, film, and television professionals as Jacqueline
Smith, Tommy Tune, Carol Lawrence, Bob Mackie, Sam Elliott,
George Peppard, Marsha Mason, Sally Struthers, Cloris Leachman,
Bruce Boxlitner, Dick and Jerry Van Dyke, and Gene Hackman, to
name a few (“Famous Thespians”).
Cause? Effect? Luck? Lawrence A. Wallman just happened to
write those articles in the Fairmont Normal School Bulletin?
Walter R. Barnes, the Dean, just happened to employ Paul Opp?
Now … one and one-half million persons have reaped the benefits
of educational theatre. The producers, writers, directors, and actors;
the scenic, lighting, costume, prop and make-up artists; the business
managers, the educators, the benefactors who provide funds; and
the audiences for theatre, television, and film in this nation today—
how many of those millions were introduced to drama through
Thespians or through Alpha Psi Omega? When the credits roll, are
we certain that we see the names of all who caused the effect?
The story continues. Upon returning to Fairmont in 1931
Paul Opp kept up his multifarious old interests and branched out
into new ones. He worked with the Fairmont Community Players,
coached debate from time to time, taught English and Speech, was
national secretary to Alpha Psi Omega, edited Playbill, … and instituted the M. M. Neely Oratorical Contest.
Matthew Mansfield Neely, of Fairmont, was a graduate of
Salem College who rose to become a United States senator and
Jo Ann Lough
11
governor of West Virginia. He believed in the power of speech
education, and, wishing to encourage college students to stand up
and speak out for their beliefs, in the 1930s he began financing an
annual contest in persuasive speaking at Salem and at Fairmont.
The contest at Fairmont, under the direction first of Dr. Paul Opp,
then of Jo Ann Lough (Dr. Opp’s former
student), and then of Suzanne Snyder
(Jo Ann Lough’s former student), with
the support of M. M. Neely and his heirs,
has continued without interruption. The
1992-1993 contest was held last Tuesday. The event, whose annual prizes
total $1,000, has been endowed in perpetuity by Neely’s daughter, Mrs.
Corinne Pettit. Cause and effect?
Lawrence A. Wallman? What had
he been doing since that day in 1923
when he was elected first president of
Lawrence A. Wallman
the Masquers? Several things—one of
which was to earn an M.A. in Speech and Drama at West Virginia
University. In 1929, when Paul Opp took his leave of absence from
Fairmont Normal, Wallman was employed to “take Opp’s place.”
He thus became Director of Theatre, and
in that first season he supervised production of four full-length plays, the first
of which was entitled The Queen’s Husband. Remember George Turley, the first
president of the dramatics club back in
1922? He had returned to school and
was cast in that opening show. L. A.
Wallman remained at Fairmont for many
years after the return of Paul Opp, retiring in 1968.
Another important turn of events
occurred at Fairmont in 1929. Radio
Medora May Mason
was here to stay, it seemed, and students at the Normal—among them, George Turley—wanted to
learn broadcasting. Journalism instructor Medora May Mason saw
the need for instruction in the use of this new medium, with the
result that, under her direction and in cooperation with radio station
WMMN, student and faculty programming began being broadcast
12
A Legacy: Cause and Effect
by remote once a week. (The call letters of WMMN, by the way,
honored Matthew M. Neely.) Among the programs broadcast by
radio from points on campus were opening day ceremonies in the
auditorium, football games, music programs, and other highlights
of campus life. “Campus Highlights,” a weekly half-hour production by Normal students, was born at this time. The Normal also
began offering lecture courses for credit by radio (Turley).
Upon the death in 1934 of I. F. Boughter, L. A. Wallman
became secretary-treasurer of the West Virginia Intercollegiate
Speech Association, a position he continued to occupy until his
retirement thirty-four years later. According to James Booth in his
history of the organization, the “continued dedication” of Wallman
contributed largely to its success in providing to thousands of
undergraduate students a platform for development of their skills
in speech and theatre (37).
As decades passed, a variety of developments occurred at
Fairmont, many of them connected with the interests of Messrs.
Wallman, Opp and Turley. For example, in the 1930s the play
season began to include productions especially for audiences of
children. The college, Wallman, and the Masquers worked in cooperation, first with the Junior League and later with the Children’s
Theatre Bureau, to provide dramatic fare for boys and girls of the
area (Wallman). In 1941, in the auditorium at West Fairmont High
School, I saw a play performed by a professional touring company
under the auspices of one of these groups. It was Marco Polo, and it
was the first play I had ever seen. I have never forgotten the magic.
Throughout my life I have chosen to share that magic with others.
George H. Turley returned to the college once again in 1941,
this time as a teacher of English and Speech, but he did not remain
long, for together with many other young persons he went to war.
World War II darkened the college and many of its activities—in the
case of drama, literally so. Theatrical performances continued, but
some were necessarily designed to permit interruption by air raid
sirens signaling blackouts (Masquers Press Clipping Book). During
this period, in 1943, Fairmont State Teachers College was at last
assigned a name that more accurately reflected the range of its
programs and course offerings: Fairmont State College. In 19461947, just two years before I entered Fairmont State as a Freshman
student in Speech, Drama, and English Education, a separate Speech
department was created out of the teaching staff in English.
L. A. Wallman was named chairman of the new department, and
Jo Ann Lough
13
among his faculty were Paul Opp and George Turley, the latter of
whom had just returned from the service and was serving also as
Veterans Coordinator (Wallman).
George H. Turley, Dr. Paul F. Opp, and Lawrence A. Wallman
at the Alpha Psi Omega awards banquet, Fairmont, 1973
Turley was a very busy man. He was named Dean of Men,
which entailed spending time as adviser to the Student Government
and Men’s Pan-Hellenic, as director of Men’s Housing, and as
Veteran’s Coordinator. He served on committees administering
student aid and campus discipline. He did public relations for the
college, including photography, and maintained its recording and
public address equipment. He was secretary of the Alumni Association. His duties as a Speech instructor led him to become director of
“Campus Highlights,” the student radio program, which was now
being broadcast live from WMMN. Later, as director of Broadcasting Education he laid the groundwork for academic programs in
radio and television production that continued to be offered through
the 1970s (Turley). In view of George Turley’s many contributions
to the college prior to his retirement in 1967, it is little wonder that
the student center that stands beside Wallman Hall was subsequently named in his honor.
Before concluding, I would like to recognize George Turley
and thank him. Mr. Turley… [George Turley rises, to much applause.]
To stop here seems to leave the stories of Wallman, Turley,
Opp, Boughter, Bavely, Leeper, and Mason incomplete, but this is
not so. They live on in all that followed, and will follow, from them.
14
A Legacy: Cause and Effect
Their legacy is here. We are part of it: the Fine Arts Building, now
Wallman Hall; the Speech department radio and television studios, now part of the Learning Resource Center; the Speech and
Drama department, now part of the Fine Arts division; the Town
and Gown Players, making available the first summer theatre
program of its kind in West Virginia, performing four plays each
summer in a community purchased tent, attracting busloads of
international tourists and placing Fairmont State on the
drama pages of the New York Times (“1965 Summer Theater
Directory”) … and so much more.
The legacy and the record of this legacy is overwhelming. As
Dr. Wayne Kime pointed out in the first of the Presidential Lecture
series, the research process yields many chance encounters. These
encounters speak to us of unfinished business, inviting us to undertake further research and perhaps even to bring new projects to
fruition. My own research has taken me down many paths which I
could not follow further, but it has also reminded me of contributions for which the groundwork has already been laid. I close with
a few of these ideas for possible further work. For our students and
visitors at Fairmont State we need to create displays, in appropriate
locations on campus, of memorabilia and photographs recalling
significant persons and events in the long history of the college. For
alumni and friends we need to set forth, perhaps in pamphlets and
pictorial histories, the many good works that have been accomplished here and which, in new forms, continue. And for ourselves,
we need to bear in mind the legacy of education and innovation that
we inherit and, through our efforts, share in passing on.
A legacy: cause and effect. Lawrence A. Wallman, a student at a small school in West Virginia, wrote a few articles in the
student newspaper back in 1921-1922. Now, seventy years later,
millions of persons here and elsewhere have been influenced by
and involved with speech and theatre education—influenced by
and involved with film, stage, radio, and television. Would it all
have happened anyway? Or did Wallman—did Turley, and
Opp, and Boughter, and the rest—did they really make a difference? Do we? I suspect so.
Jo Ann Lough
15
Works Cited
Booth, James. “A History of the West Virginia Intercollegiate Speech
Association.” Master’s thesis, West Virginia University, 1967.
Fairmont Normal School Bulletin, 11-13 (1921-1924), 18 (1928), 19 [as
The Columns] (1928-1929).
“Famous Thespians.” Dramatics 50 (December 1978): 7.
Garner, Donald. “The First Fifty Years of Alpha Psi Omega as Told
by Paul Opp.” Playbill [Alpha Psi Omega] 49 (October 1975): 4-11.
Lewis, Philip. Trouping: How the Show Came to Town. New York:
Harper and Row, 1973.
Lough, Glenn D. (1906-1991), Marion County historian. Research
notes.
McCuhan, Jo [of the International Thespian Society]. Telephone
conversation with author, March 1993.
Masquers Press Clipping Book. Archives, Speech and Drama Department, Fairmont State College.
“1965 Summer Theater Directory.” New York Times 13 June 1965: X5.
Palmarini, James. “If It’s Wednesday, It Must Be Antigone.”
Dramatics 58 (October 1986): 17-28.
“Thespians 1978 International Theatre Arts Conference” [Interviews
with Harry T. Leeper, Paul F. Opp, Ernest W. Bavely, et al.].
Dramatics 50 (May/June 1979): 7-15.
Turley, George H. Interview with author. Fairmont, 31 March 1993.
Turner, William P. A Centennial History of Fairmont State College.
Fairmont: Fairmont State College, 1970.
Wallman, Lawrence A. “Alpha Psi Omega and the College Theatre.”
Archives, Speech and Drama Department, Fairmont State College.
Fairmont State College Occasional Papers
No. 1. Wayne R. Kime, “Chance Encounters: Scholar Meets Subject” (1990)
No. 2. Ronald D. Pearse, “Ethical Behavior is Strategic Behavior” (1991)
No. 3. John M. Teahan, “'One of the Nation of Many Nations':
Walt Whitman and Multiculturalism” (1992)
No. 4. Judy Prozzillo Byers, “Teaching the Art of Living:
The Education Philosophy of Ruth Mary Weeks” (1993)
No. 5. Jo Ann Lough, “A Legacy: Cause and Effect” (1994)
COLOPHON
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Fairmont State College, the largest institution in the West Virginia state college system, currently enrolls over 6,500 students. Incorporated in 1867 as a state-supported normal school, for over seven decades
it helped train teachers for the public school system until, in 1943, it was
authorized additionally to offer bachelor of arts and bachelor of science
degrees. At present, following two decades of rapid growth, the college
offers one-year certificates, two-year associate degrees, four-year bachelor‘s degrees, preprofessional study in several fields, and a range of continuing education classes.
Drawing a high proportion of its students from within its own
region, Fairmont State College welcomes the support it receives from
surrounding areas. In return it participates actively in community projects,
shares its programs and facilities with the public, lends its resources to
promoting economic development, and serves as an information center
and cultural focus.
Persons desiring further information about the college should
write the Director of Public Relations, Fairmont State College, Fairmont,
West Virginia 26554, or call 304-367-4000.
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